Similar to Oregon Trail, and even Organ Trail! Except there's action combat! But while a road trip through hell sounds fun on paper, doing well in Death Road to Canada is probably as hard as driving through a zombie apocalypse in real life.

There's a character creator here, and if you have any pixel art skills you can even mod your own character faces and bodies! There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor here as well, so it can be fun to see all the shenanigans your group will get into. These aspects are the game's biggest selling points.

But it's biggest flaw is that RNG plays too large of a factor in your success, and 95% of the time the dice are not in your favor. Events will constantly take away supplies, and unless you read a guide it can be hard to determine what exactly is going on. A lot of information is hidden from the player, the game demands that you "figure things out yourself" over multiple runs like what skills work well in which events, or what weapons are better than others. Even your party's skill stats are hidden until a character rolls their skill check to 'reveal' it during an event. Combine this with the fact that there's no way to control how your characters develop other than praying for the right skill upgrade choices. Characters can have perks and traits that will boost certain stats, but the boost you get is minimal. It's very possible to roll a 0 for a stat you have a perk or trait for which only boosts that stat to 1, which is still painfully low. And it is VERY possible to roll a character that has terrible stats across the board.

Combat isn't that great either. Being a survival game, characters can become tired if they swing a melee weapon around too much, which will affect their attack speed until they can catch their breath. There are other tactics you can employ, such as grabbing and throwing certain objects in the environment or strategically maneuvering around zombies (You'll be doing this a lot) but the game simply throws too much at you to make melee combat a meaningful thing to invest in the late to end game, where you'll be in sieges facing off against hundreds of zombies...and I am not exaggerating. In the harder difficulties sieges containing 200+ zombs become a common occurrence early on. Guns exist and they can be quite effective! Except bullets are a rare commodity. Understandable, given that this is a zombie survival game. But once again the game expects you to deal with gigantic hordes of zombs, and 95% of the time it will not give you the resources needed to do so.

Runs mostly end in the same crushingly depressing fashion. Run out of food, run out of fuel, run out of friends...and finally run out of limbs. It's brutally difficult and the game does not forgive.

...But for some people, that's where the fun is. How long can you last? Could this be the run where you finally cross the border? And more importantly, what kinds of trouble will your group get into this time? The humor, charm and sheer variety of possibilities is what saves this game and keeps me coming back. And if you can nab it on sale? I've certainly spent more on worse.

Not for those who like to win, but definitely for those who simply enjoy the ride, pun very intended.

Similar to Oregon Trail, and even Organ Trail! Except there's action combat! But while a road trip through hell sounds fun on paper, doing well in Death Road to Canada is probably as hard as driving through a zombie apocalypse in real life. There's a character creator here, and if you have any pixel art skills you can even mod your own character faces and bodies! There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor here as well, so it can be fun to see all the shenanigans your group will get into. These aspects are the game's biggest selling points. But it's biggest flaw is that RNG plays too large of a factor in your success, and 95% of the time the dice are not in your favor. Events will constantly take away supplies, and unless you read a guide it can be hard to determine what exactly is going on. A lot of information is hidden from the player, the game demands that you "figure things out yourself" over multiple runs like what skills work well in which events, or what weapons are better than others. Even your party's skill stats are hidden until a character rolls their skill check to 'reveal' it during an event. Combine this with the fact that there's no way to control how your characters develop other than praying for the right skill upgrade choices. Characters can have perks and traits that will boost certain stats, but the boost you get is minimal. It's very possible to roll a 0 for a stat you have a perk or trait for which only boosts that stat to 1, which is still painfully low. And it is VERY possible to roll a character that has terrible stats across the board. Combat isn't that great either. Being a survival game, characters can become tired if they swing a melee weapon around too much, which will affect their attack speed until they can catch their breath. There are other tactics you can employ, such as grabbing and throwing certain objects in the environment or strategically maneuvering around zombies (You'll be doing this a lot) but the game simply throws too much at you to make melee combat a meaningful thing to invest in the late to end game, where you'll be in sieges facing off against hundreds of zombies...and I am not exaggerating. In the harder difficulties sieges containing 200+ zombs become a common occurrence early on. Guns exist and they can be quite effective! Except bullets are a rare commodity. Understandable, given that this is a zombie survival game. But once again the game expects you to deal with gigantic hordes of zombs, and 95% of the time it will not give you the resources needed to do so. Runs mostly end in the same crushingly depressing fashion. Run out of food, run out of fuel, run out of friends...and finally run out of limbs. It's brutally difficult and the game does not forgive. ...But for some people, that's where the fun is. How long can you last? Could this be the run where you finally cross the border? And more importantly, what kinds of trouble will your group get into this time? The humor, charm and sheer variety of possibilities is what saves this game and keeps me coming back. And if you can nab it on sale? I've certainly spent more on worse. Not for those who like to win, but definitely for those who simply enjoy the ride, pun very intended.